President Jacques Chirac will attend a special ceremony in the nation’s capital designating 10 May as Slavery Remembrance Day.
Events will also be held in France’s ex-colony Senegal, from where African slaves were shipped to the Caribbean.
On 10 May five years ago, the French Senate passed a law recognising slavery as a crime against humanity.
Hundreds of thousands of slaves were taken by French ships from Africa to plantations in the Caribbean before France banned the practice in 1848.
Mr Chirac – with an eye on his legacy – wants France never to forget what he calls “this indelible stain on history”.
Source: BBC News
